Although, however, these things had been going on all the week that Malcolm was confined to his room, they had not reached this last point until after he was out again, and mean time not a whisper of them had come to his or Duncan’s ears. Had they been still in the Seaton, one or other of the travelling ripples of talk must have found them; but Duncan had come and gone between his cottage and Malcolm’s bedside, without a single downy feather from the still widening flap of the wings of Fame ever dropping on him; and the only persons who visited Malcolm besides--were the Doctor--too discreet in his office to mix himself up with gossip; Mr Graham, to whom nobody, except it had been Miss Horn, whom he had not seen for a fortnight, would have dreamed of mentioning such a subject; and Mrs Courthope--not only discreet like the doctor, but shy of such discourse as any reference to the rumour must usher in its train. At length he was sufficiently recovered to walk to his grandfather’s cottage; but only now for the first time had he a notion of how far bodily condition can reach in the oppression and overclouding of the spiritual atmosphere.--“Gien I be like this,” he said to himself, “what maun the weather be like aneth yon hump o’ the laird’s!” Now also for the first time he understood what Mr Graham had meant when he told him that he only was a strong man who was strong in weakness; he only a brave man who, inhabiting trembling, yet faced his foe; he only a true man who, tempted by _good_, yet abstained. Duncan received him with delight, made him sit in his own old chair, got him a cup of tea, and waited upon him with the tenderness of a woman. While he drank his tea, Malcolm recounted his last adventure in connection with the wizard’s chamber. “Tat will be ta ped she’ll saw in her feeshon,” said Duncan, whose very eyes seemed to listen to the tale. When Malcolm came to Mrs Catanach’s assertion that she knew more of him than he did himself-- “Then she peliefs ta voman does, my poy. We are aall poth of us in ta efil voman’s power,” said Duncan sadly. “Never a hair, daddy!” cried Malcolm. “A’ pooer ’s i’ the han’s o’ ane that’s no _her_ maister. Ken she what she likes, she canna pairt you an’ me, daddy.” “God forpid!” responded Duncan. “But we must pe on our kard.” Close by the cottage stood an ivy-grown bridge, of old leading the king’s highway across the burn to the Auld Toon, but now leading only to the flower-garden. Eager for the open air of which he had been so long deprived, and hoping he might meet the marquis or Lady Florimel, Malcolm would have had his grandfather to accompany him thither; but Duncan declined, for he had not yet attended to the lamps; and Malcolm therefore went alone.